1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an audio-video system and, more particularly, to an audio-video system for use in a courtroom and in other areas in which many events occur.
2. Discussion
Audio-video systems are used in a wide variety of applications and are adapted to record the images and audio signals associated with various events. These recorded images and audio signals are often used for archival and/or educational purposes. More particularly, such systems have gained acceptance by obviating the need for teachers or transcribers, thereby reducing cost.
While prior audio-video systems have been widely used in educational and medical environments, (i.e. "one speaker at a time" environments) they have not been widely employed in a courtroom or other adversarial environment, even though they obviate the need for court reporters, thereby reducing costs. That is, though courtroom or adversarial type proceedings seem to be a natural setting or application for the use of these prior audio-video systems, such proceedings have many unique characteristics and stringent recording requirements that make many of these prior systems impractical. For example, unlike a "one speaker at a time" environment, an adversarial proceeding is normally characterized by the generation of audio signals from a variety of sources, such as judges, juries, attorneys, court employees, and from visitors. These diverse audio requirements require an audio-video system to process a great number and variety of often conflicting and competing audio signals, while ensuring that the system capture all of the video image material necessary to fully and accurately record the great number of events occurring during this type of proceeding.
These requirements are particularly troublesome to many of these prior systems, since these systems are designated to uniquely associate one or more cameras with certain microphones. When multiple audio signals are simultaneously and competingly generated, these systems usually activate cameras associated with each active microphone for a small amount of time. Such camera switching causes these systems to fail to completely record all of the necessary events. Additionally, the audio video recordings associated with judicial proceedings must be of an extremely high quality, in order to ensure that the recordings, which have legal significance, properly and accurately reflect the actions associated with the proceedings. Many of these prior systems provide video recordings of poor and unacceptable quality.
Moreover, many of these prior audio-video systems are very complicated and difficult to use. In the judicial context, this difficulty is magnified and often times becomes the single impediment to the use of an otherwise technically sound system. That is, due the very complex and fast moving nature of judicial and adversarial proceedings, a judge, or other court officer, has very little time to reflect upon the wide variety of operational aspects that are associated with such an audio-video system. Moreover, the budget constraints confronted by the judiciary prevents one or more individuals from being solely assigned to operate such an audio-video system. Therefore, in order to ensure that such a audio-video system will gain wide acceptance by judges and other judiciary officers, it is essential that a judicial audio-video system be very easy to use and provide prompts that enable an operator to quickly and easily ascertain certain operations which may be performed at any given time.
Many times during an adversarial proceeding, it is necessary for a judge or a party to review events (i.e. such as witnesses testimony) that may have just previously occurred. In this regard, a judicial audio-visual system must also be capable of accurately and easily presenting prior recorded events to a judge or other proceeding attendees, in an efficient and easily selectable manner. Many of these prior audio-video systems, while accurately recording many types of proceedings, have not allowed the recordings to be selectively interrupted in order to allow those in attendance to quickly and easily review those events which have just occurred.
Moreover, many of these prior audio-video systems have also been prone to failure and have not adequately allowed a user to diagnose or ascertain those parts of the system which have failed or become faulty. In this regard, many of these systems have experienced relatively long times of inactivity or failure, due to the inability of a user to determine the steps necessary to correct the fault. This is particularly important in the heavily loaded judicial context. Therefore, a judicial audio-video system must be highly reliable and must be easily repaired and adapted to provide signals effective to identify those portions of the system which are faulty or in error. In this manner, the heavily judicial workload will not be unduly and adversely impacted.
There is therefore a need to provide an audio-video system which may be reliably used and which meets the diverse needs of a judicial or adversarial proceeding or environment. Such an audio-video system should be capable of accurately recording the multitude of events which take place within a adversarial proceeding and should be capable of receiving and processing multiple and often conflicting types of audio signals, and selecting only those video images which are needed to accurately record the events occurring within a courtroom. Moreover, the provided judicial audio-video system should be relatively easy to use and should provide indication signals, effective to identify system faults, thereby allowing a user to easily and quickly correct system difficulties.